austraLasia #1700
Memoirs of the Oratory - text available in full web version
ROME: 28th November 2006 -- Mindful of the reccomendation of the Rector Major, as he moves around provinces, that confreres, and Rectors in particular, should make an effort to read the Memoirs of the Oratory at least once a year, a version of this primary source is now available in English on Bosconet (under the What's newsection on the home page for the moment).
Should you be asking, in fact, 'What's new about that?', a word of explanation is in order.
Firstly, we are talking of the 1989 Don Bosco Publications, New Rochelle edition, which has been out of print for some time now. Effectively that has been the only English version, and a most valuable one too, for its translation, notes and bibliography. A new updated edition of this, corrected in terms of translation where necessary, is in the pipeline.
The point is this, however. People have been clamouring for copies of the English version, and as a result a number of 'online versions' have cropped up, one of which is already available from the Philippines but hosted from Cambodia - a link to that is available on the Bosconet homepage too. The difficulty of these versions is that they come from low-end scanned versions which introduce errors into the text on the one hand, and are simply 'the book' webified on the other.
Another approach is needed to meet the nature of the medium, which has no 'pages' in reality, even though we call it a web page. How, for example, does one represent a footnote when there is no page? It has to be an end-note, obviously. And then what happens? Will someone be prepared to sit down and laboriously move 895 or thereabout footnotes to the end, and link them to the correct spot in the text? Hardly.
Fortunately, there is software (free, and open source, incidentally) which permits the conversion of a high-end scanned or original digital text into a storage format called XML. From there it can be rendered for the web according to principles of the web. It can just as easily be rendered from the same XML format for printing to paper, and so on. The end result is a text stored accurately for posterity and capable of rendering in a variety of media.
It is this latter XML process that has been applied to MO - and the result is a version for the web which allows one to navigate it in a variety of ways, including moving back and forwards between text and end-note, or moving between one footnote reference and another when an internal reference is made. This latter was necessary because footnotes applied to a chapter, whereas the endnotes are at the end of the entire text, so run cumulatively almost as far as 900! Without cross-referenced notes the reader would now be lost on the web if note 3 in one chapter sends the reader to note 6 in another, which is no longer note 6 but 106 or whatever! Cross-referencing has overcome this problem.
The only material the web version does not include (though it would be possible to provide a link to these if people felt they needed them) is the illustrations in the book. It makes little sense to try to place images in a web version as if it were a book. It is much easier to make these available separately if they are needed.
Enjoy! In due course, this material (there is now a developing set of XML-based resources on Bosconet) will move to a page of its own. For now, consult it from the home page.
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.
Memoirs of the Oratory - text available in full web version
ROME: 28th November 2006 -- Mindful of the reccomendation of the Rector Major, as he moves around provinces, that confreres, and Rectors in particular, should make an effort to read the Memoirs of the Oratory at least once a year, a version of this primary source is now available in English on Bosconet (under the What's newsection on the home page for the moment).
Should you be asking, in fact, 'What's new about that?', a word of explanation is in order.
Firstly, we are talking of the 1989 Don Bosco Publications, New Rochelle edition, which has been out of print for some time now. Effectively that has been the only English version, and a most valuable one too, for its translation, notes and bibliography. A new updated edition of this, corrected in terms of translation where necessary, is in the pipeline.
The point is this, however. People have been clamouring for copies of the English version, and as a result a number of 'online versions' have cropped up, one of which is already available from the Philippines but hosted from Cambodia - a link to that is available on the Bosconet homepage too. The difficulty of these versions is that they come from low-end scanned versions which introduce errors into the text on the one hand, and are simply 'the book' webified on the other.
Another approach is needed to meet the nature of the medium, which has no 'pages' in reality, even though we call it a web page. How, for example, does one represent a footnote when there is no page? It has to be an end-note, obviously. And then what happens? Will someone be prepared to sit down and laboriously move 895 or thereabout footnotes to the end, and link them to the correct spot in the text? Hardly.
Fortunately, there is software (free, and open source, incidentally) which permits the conversion of a high-end scanned or original digital text into a storage format called XML. From there it can be rendered for the web according to principles of the web. It can just as easily be rendered from the same XML format for printing to paper, and so on. The end result is a text stored accurately for posterity and capable of rendering in a variety of media.
It is this latter XML process that has been applied to MO - and the result is a version for the web which allows one to navigate it in a variety of ways, including moving back and forwards between text and end-note, or moving between one footnote reference and another when an internal reference is made. This latter was necessary because footnotes applied to a chapter, whereas the endnotes are at the end of the entire text, so run cumulatively almost as far as 900! Without cross-referenced notes the reader would now be lost on the web if note 3 in one chapter sends the reader to note 6 in another, which is no longer note 6 but 106 or whatever! Cross-referencing has overcome this problem.
The only material the web version does not include (though it would be possible to provide a link to these if people felt they needed them) is the illustrations in the book. It makes little sense to try to place images in a web version as if it were a book. It is much easier to make these available separately if they are needed.
Enjoy! In due course, this material (there is now a developing set of XML-based resources on Bosconet) will move to a page of its own. For now, consult it from the home page.
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.
